Three sentenced for chaining, raping girl

Three people were sentenced to up to three and a half years in prison at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday after being arrested last August in connection with the confinement, chaining and rape of a 13-year-old girl in the capital’s Russey Keo district.

According to judge Nou Veasna, the victim’s aunts – Chea Tina, 27, and Chea Sros, 32 – were sentenced to three years in prison for chaining up their niece and forcing her to have sex with Chhim Chaily, 36, in exchange for $1,000. Chaily was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and fined 8 million riel (about $1,947).

“The story is not true . . . The girl [victim] is naughty,” said Tith Virak, Sros’s husband after the verdict.

Separately, the court yesterday heard the case of a woman who allegedly procured four girls aged between 15 and 23 for four men in the capital’s Phnom Penh Thmey commune in May. According to the 32-year-old accused, Eng Bopha, four men had entered the karaoke where she worked as manager to “ask for virgin girls”.

“I asked Thi Marineth, because she worked there for a longer time,” she said, referencing an alleged accomplice who had evaded arrest. “When we got the [four] girls . . . one customer agreed to give us $1,500 . . . Then the police arrested us.”

Sok Uorng, Bopha’s attorney, said the victims had agreed to the deal as they were in need of money. A verdict is due on November 3.

Latest Video

With an attempted coup against the government of President Recep Erdogan quashed only days ago and more than 7,000 alleged conspirators now under arrest, the Turkish ambassador to Cambodia yesterday pressed the govern